What it's about: Hollywood memoir based on candid late-night, alcohol-fueled conversations between a British reporter and Gardner, the star who was married to Frank Sinatra, Mickey Rooney and band leader Artie Shaw.

The buzz: Gardner, who died in 1990, backed out of a book collaboration with the reporter, Peter Evans, who died last year, just as he was finishing the book.

3. Long Lankin by John Banville (Vintage, fiction, on sale July 2)

What it's about: Debut short story collection, inspired by James Joyce's Dubliners, originally published in Britain in 1970, when Banville was 25, but not previously published in the USA.

The buzz: Banville, hailed as a master stylist, has won the Man Booker Prize and the Irish PEN Award.